Top Tips of the week

First topic message reminder :

Please add your top tips for this week. July's most thanked will get to publicise their business or a cause close to their heart on our main page for the whole month of August.

Happy tipping!

If like me, you go away forgetting to decant your kitchen compost and then discover a kitchen full of fruit flies on your return, then the following little trick definitely works:

Take an empty plastic pot with a lid (of the sort that might normally hold cream or yogurt).  Place a section of banana peel inside and add a bit of cider vinegar to the pot and then make several small holes in the lid with a toothpick or a skewer and leave your "honey trap" near the largest concentration of fruit flies.  Hey presto the fruit flies get in but can't get out and you will have kitchen without fruit flies.  Depending on how Buddhist you feel about these things, you can take the pot outside and release the flies if you want.

In fact, I've just been very successful using an old bit of kiwi fruit and some balsamic vinegar and it's worked beautifully.  I suspect it just needs to be something sweet.

This post was a great idea, so time for another.
Having these lovely polished tile floors is very helpful to move large objects, wardrobe for example. Four bits of old thick card under each corner makes it very easy to slide.... We moved a very heavy wood-burning stove with this method which I sure we could not have done otherwise.

ghiro wrote:I suspect, like many others, our precious supply of wood for the winter is stored outdoors on pallets and covered with a tarpaulin.  Unfortunately, over the years, said tarpaulin has developed a number of holes - particularly on the top.So we thought we'd buy another one today.  But when we arrived at Brico we discovered sheets of weatherproof rubber corrugated roofing (100 x 80cm) at €6.  [Naturally similar products are available.........blah, blah, blah]     So the woodpile, under the old tarpaulin, now has a roof held down with some very large stones.  I'll let you know in due course how it survives the rain and high winds of the northern Italian winter (but I'm optimistic!).

so... did it work? my clever other half has built a woodshed with roof so we leave the wood out all year and then stack in said shed at the end of the summer.

Worked a treat I'm glad to say.   But your clever OH has a much better solution.  Can I borrow him please? 

ghiro wrote:Worked a treat I'm glad to say.   But your clever OH has a much better solution.  Can I borrow him please? 

Well I pinched this from Lax on the abruzzolutely forum. He has said there is an app for Android operating system mobiles for the Screwfix catalogue. So you can find what you want on there in English and take it to the ferramenta and show them. Much better that I was doing ('cos I don't have a posh mobile, so I still will) and that was finding it, capturing the picture and printing it! Suppose you could save it as a PDF and put it on the kindle (I've relented and have one of those now). Try getting a turn-buckle over here! By the way it's a tenditore if you do need one... and they are good for those sail cloth things for shade 

I expect you all have proxy VPNs and are signed up to Netflix - well worth a try if not.  Anyway I recently tried switching countries on my VPN which is Hide My ASS Pro (this just takes seconds) with a couple of good results.  First switching to America produced a new look Netflix with some really good material, new movies and TV series.  There is a virtual UK proxy listed in Frankfurt and being much nearer it is significantly faster than any of the UK addresses.  For the same reason I always use East coast addresses in the US.
I see that the new Xtreamer Wonder features a facility to flip content onto a TV as well as lots of other good stuff like pre-loaded XBMC ...  well Christmas is coming!

Thank you for the tips especially the mozzie and ants ones. My sister gets ants at her place in Spain every year. Although it looks silly she says putting lines of chalk round the kitchen keeps them from crossing the line. Don't know if this is after a few sherbets or not

Thanks Mozza ... for reviving this post (and of course the amusement). Another tip I thought of today was to dry herbs (if not posted already) and take them back to the UK (or otherwise ). You can give them to others as small gifts or use them yourself. We know this works as the sage and oregano have been wonderful  and prised to high heaven by all the family.